The A15 Insider - Q4 2024 Edition

Dear friends,

For over ten years, we've had the privilege of backing the region's brightest minds, helping them build companies that tackle big challenges and solve problems affecting hundreds of millions of people.

We’ve seen founders struggle, win big, stumble, and come back stronger. We’ve witnessed the grit it takes to solve massive challenges and the resilience needed to keep going when things get tough.

Not to beat our own drum, but we’ve been fortunate to play a small part in helping them steer through the challenges of building extraordinary products.

We’ve largely stayed quiet about it all, but along the way learned a lot of valuable insights and lessons. We felt it was time to begin sharing some of what we’ve learned. This newsletter, which we hope to make a quarterly update, is a small step in that direction.

This is what we are kicking off our 2025 with.

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Inside A15

1/ Making it to the leaderboard

We closed 2024 with the recognition of being named among Forbes Middle East’s Top Venture Capitalists. We’re grateful for the acknowledgment, though we know it’s the hard work and vision of the founders we’ve had the privilege to support that truly make this possible. Over the years, we’ve quietly worked alongside them, offering guidance, operational support, and helping secure follow-on funding. With eight successful exits to date, we’re humbled to be part of the broader effort shaping the region’s tech ecosystem.

2/ Welcoming Ahmed to the team

In March, we welcomed Ahmed to our investment team, joining Karim Beshara and Bassem Raafat. Before A15, Ahmed was a strategy consultant at BCG and has operational experience at Synapse Analytics and Filkhedma.

In his own words, “A year at A15 feels like several in any other job. I enjoy the deep check-ins with founders—discussing strategy, challenges and commercial plans. I learn something new in every meeting, especially from Bassem’s insights on deal structuring and Karim’s guidance on operational strategy."

We're excited to have Ahmed on board as we continue to support founders across the region.

3/ Our eighth exit

This is the biggest highlight from our 2024. We had our eighth exit, with Beyon Solutions (a subsidiary of Bahrain’s leading telco Batleco) acquiring Link Development. It marks a new chapter for a company that has been a pioneer in Egypt’s tech sector.

(On an unrelated note: if you watch closely, you’ll notice a pattern across our portfolio. They build world-class products and services locally and then gradually go for the world. One market at a time).

When A15’s founders started the firm over ten years ago, they wanted to form an institution whose one and only focus was to work closely with founders to help them through the lifecycle of starting, scaling and selling a company.

With this exit, we’re grateful to have successfully done that at least eight times.

From the portfolio

1/ Funding rounds: Paymob and FlapKap

I: Paymob raised a $22 million Series B extension in September to take their Series B round to $72 million. They had raised the other $50 million in May 2022. It was led by PayPal Ventures, marking their first investment in the Middle East & North Africa.

The latest extension is led by EBRD Venture Capital with different other investors including PayPal Ventures, also participating in the round.

In addition to raising money, Paymob made some big moves by becoming the first payments facilitator in Egypt to enable Apple Pay both in-store and online. Check the full story here.

II: FlapKap, which provides revenue-based and embedded financing solutions to SMEs in the region, raised $34 million in a pre-Series A round (debt and equity), also in September. It was led by BECO Capital, with Pact VC coming in as the latest VC on the cap table. We, along with Nclude, and QED Investors, also participated in the round. The debt portion came from Channel Capital.

Ahmad Coucha, the co-founder of FlapKap previously also founded Kijami, another startup that A15 has backed since its early days.

Having backed Coucha since the very early Kijamii days, the team at A15 was incredibly excited to partner with a second-time founder as well as Khaled, Sherif and Kunal in order to solve one of the region's most serious issues. Check the full story here.

2/ Other exciting updates

I: Partment scored football star Omar Marmoush as its Global Brand Ambassador. The move will help the property management and fractional ownership startup amplify its latest innovations in the proptech space through the football star, whose ambition, drive, and persistence towards success embody the Partment culture.

II: Reme-D, a deeptech startup backed by A15 won three awards; including the Most Impactful Business Award at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Innovation Fund, and Top Prize in LEAP 2024’s US$1 Million Rocket Fuel Startup Pitch Challenge.

It was founded in response to Covid-19 and specializes in developing and manufacturing diagnostic kits for both human and animal diseases, using cutting-edge molecular diagnostics like PCR to enable accurate and fast diagnoses.

One of the main reasons we invested in Reme-D, aside from its exceptional founder, is the company's ability to design and produce high-quality, affordable products that are both developed and manufactured locally.The business plays an important import substitution role, a theme we quite like, in a large and important sector; this, along with the export opportunity to neighbouring markets in Africa, made for an attractive addressable market opportunity.

III: TPAY Türkiye secured an Open Banking License from the Central Bank of Türkiye (CBRT), becoming one of the first companies in the country to do so. With the license in hand, TPAY is poised to introduce new open banking products in Türkiye.

Since acquiring Payguru, TPAY has made significant strides in Türkiye, expanding its payment methods and use cases from digital to non-digital services such as event tickets, and broadening their suite of payment methods from carrier billing to bank transfers, ATM cash payments and now open banking. Check the full story here.

IV: WaffarX, a cashback rewards platform for MENA, has partnered with Mobily Neqaty, Mobily KSA’s loyalty program, to offer cashback rewards on a wide range of regional and international brands.

What’s interesting about this partnership is how it came about, which highlights A15's focus on fostering strong connections among founders through regular meetups.

During one such meetup, Ezz, CEO of WaffarX, connected with Medhat Karam, CEO of ARPU Plus, another A15 portfolio company, and the idea for this partnership was born. A few months later, the collaboration came to life, marking WaffarX’s exciting entry into Saudi Arabia.

3/ New Investments

We made a total of seven new investments in 2024. Here’s a quick what and why.

I: Nowlun. Digital freight forwarder that provides instant freight quotes and real-time tracking in MENA, now operational in Egypt and Saudi

Arabia. You can think of them as MENA’s answer to Flexport.

Why we invested: A huge, manual market ripe for disruption; plus team’s complementary strengths in technology and sector.

II: SEE. Assesses and tracks young athletes’ physical abilities to match them with the best-suited sports and monitor performance.

Why we invested: Strong and balanced team; differentiated offering vs alternatives; seemingly good timing as enabling technology advancements meet a growing health and fitness awanress.

III: Lami. Digitizes insurance processes in Africa, enabling brokers and intermediaries to sell insurance products by streamlining the sales process and standardizing the tech stack.

Why we invested: Large problem; strong traction. Picks and shovels play in a market benefiting from structural tailwinds as insurance penetration on the continent plays catch up with global comparables.

IV: GAIL. Builds AI-driven virtual employees for sales and support in regulated industries such as insurance and financial services.

Why we invested: Enterprises will increasingly expect AI agents to deliver outcomes rather than simply optimize/automate workflows. Regulated industries will require a sector-nuanced approach. GAIL is at the forefront of this. Second-time founders (first start-up in insurance space, giving them first-hand sector experience). Strong early traction.

V: Partment. Democratizes real estate investments with a co-ownership model and end-to-end property management.

Why we invested: Highly customer-centric team, crucial for such an experience-driven product. Structural demand-supply tailwinds. Quality and brand. Synergies between fractional ownership and property management.

VI: Reme-D. Discussed above.

VII: Quantum Dice. A UK-based deep tech company leveraging quantum optics to transform cybersecurity and stochastic simulations.

Why we invested: Unique, patented and technically advanced solution; ability of the founder to manage commercials besides being a strong technical researcher.

What’s on the calendar

In partnership with 42Geeks, we are excited to bring the East Africa 2025 Tour to Cairo from February 10 to 13, shining a global spotlight on Egypt’s dynamic startup ecosystem. It will offer local founders and global VCs valuable networking opportunities, fostering connections and collaborations.

As one of the hosts, we are proud to support 42Geeks in engaging with the Egyptian tech community, creating a platform for idea exchange, insights, and potential investment.

Signing off

2024 was a difficult year for venture. In MENA. And the rest of the world. According to Wamda and Digital Digest’s report, the investment value of VC deals dropped 11% year-over-year to about $2 billion. However, the investment volume surged to 610 deals in 2024, a 3.5% YoY increase.

Venture capital investments globally grew to $368.5 billion in 2024, marking a 5.4% increase from the previous year’s $349.4 billion, according to the Q4 2024 Pitchbook-NVCA Venture Monitor report. However, this growth is largely attributed to the significant share of funding directed towards AI startups, which accounted for one-third of the total investment. At the same time, the number of global deals saw a 17% decline, dropping to 35,686 from 43,320 in 2023.

What we can say about our firm and portfolio, though, is that we came out of 2024 stronger and more resilient. We’ve been able to adapt to the shifting landscape by staying focused on building value, and supporting our portfolio companies in navigating challenging market conditions.

Here’s to hoping 2025 would be a great year for all of us.

Please don’t forget to share your feedback on the newsletter.

If you're a founder building in the Middle East and North Africa, or even considering it, we'd love to hear from you.

We’ll see you in April,
Team A15